What Dysregulates You?

#1 in the Series: How Healing Provides Resilience in Crisis

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I was watching a TV show the other night when a family member said, “I am sorry, is this show triggering you?” It was a reality-based story based on the life of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during World War II. It is worth watching (The New Look). The human capacity for cruelty to other humans always astounds me. I was horrified, but not dysregulated—which is what we know as being triggered.

I finished watching the segment and wandered off to reflect on things that used to dysregulate me but no longer do. For most of my life not much bothered me because I had distanced myself from my emotions (dissociated). After much professional help, I can now recognize those emotions without being overwhelmed. This doesn’t mean that I do not get triggered; it means that I recognize that I have been and know how to calm my nervous system. Sometimes this means I can stop the reaction before I am drowning in stress hormones. Other times, it means I know how to release the stress hormones that flood my body.

It is rare for a traumatic story, documentary, or episode on a TV show to dysregulate me. I have worked very hard to separate what is happening to someone else from what is happening/or has happened to me. I can be sad or angry without internalizing the event as if was happening to me now. Maybe my coping skills that compartmentalized everything to survive are continuing in healthier ways. This is far more difficult for many others than it is for me. I am fortunate. That doesn’t mean I do not have triggers that have the potential to upend me. That is what happened several weeks ago.

After four months of remaining calm during one of the most difficult experiences—my husband’s health crisis—I was so remarkably triggered that I couldn’t feel my feet for days. As I floated down hallways and avoided stairways, I was reminded that this was how I felt most of my life. I didn’t like it but was now in a place where I could understand it—and analyze what had occurred.

Maybe I will share the details in some future post (or book) but that isn’t the intent of this writing. A sufficient summary would be that I told the truth and was not believed. Once I understood this as the trigger, it was possible to track the chain of events that led me to that moment.

My first clue was that I did not feel like my 71-year-old self but I could not identify what younger self arrived at that moment. Now I understand that several younger selves arrived.

• The three year old who was sent back to the daycare because her young expressions of fear about returning were not believed.

• The five year old who could not defend herself against the lies of an adult who was covering up his abuse.

• The ten year old who self-disclosed to a camp counselor and was told to ask for forgiveness for lying.

• The young adult who signed a contract but did not keep a copy of it and when she was fired (for being too honest) was told that she was lying and there was no contract. (This story is in A Brave Life.)

• The adult who did not resign but—during a two-hour inquisition—was told that she did and was now lying to save her job. (This story is also in A Brave Life.)

The young adult and adult incidents would not have been nearly so traumatic if they had not been preceded by the traumatic childhood experiences listed above (and many more). Trauma always layers on top of previous traumas. And what happened recently called every younger self who had found their way to healing back into the room.

I realized that there was one core characteristic to all of these episodes. I was—as a child and as an adult—told to tell a lie against myself. I was pressured to deny my truth—to say I had lied.

In Jeannie’s Brave Childhood, I tell the story of this five-year-old child. At the end of processing the episode with the assistance of my therapist and EMDR, I wrote the following:

“I was never going to say it. They could have taken me to a field and dragged me behind wild horses. They could have sent me in front of a firing squad. I was never going to say a lie against myself.”

I knew this was my true “self.” I felt the same strength inside her that had enabled me to survive. She learned adults could lie and she could lie about what adults did to her. My little five-year-old self couldn’t control anything in her world, but she could control the words coming out of her mouth. No one could force her to say she was sorry for something she didn’t do. Not even her love for her father could make her cross that line.

What I was asked to do two weeks ago was to tell a lie against myself. I wasn’t believed and was asked to agree that I had said something that was untrue. Why? “Because people lie.”

Yes, people lie. So much so that our entire nation is struggling to discern the truth. I have sometimes lied because it wasn’t safe to tell the truth—but never in a way that required me to tell a lie against myself. I have been fired twice on this point. That five-year-old self is my internal compass and I felt her dig in a few weeks ago.

It is important to note here that children lie because they do not feel safe. This is sometimes hard for adults to recognize if they are doing all they can to help the child feel safe. It is a survival skill. A skill I was adept at but chose not to use as an adult. I was often far more honest than I should have been; it wasn’t always safe to be honest.

Every survivor’s story is different and thus, what is most dysregulating is different. What impacts one person can be a non-event for another. The intensity of what happened internally when asked to admit to something that wasn’t true was surprising. It felt like being T-boned in an intersection. I never saw it coming. And I couldn’t feel my feet for days.

When I write Brave Survivor pieces, I always ask myself these questions: Is this actually just processing that doesn’t need sharing? Or, does this explain processing in a way that might help others? In this case, by not sharing the details, I do believe it is applicable to the journey of other survivors. The details are mine to continue to redeem, but the journey of not being believed is almost always a part of every survivor’s story.

What I found interesting is how easy it was for me to doubt my truth—for several days. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I am just creating a story that helps me sleep at night. Maybe the evidence I have of truth that conflicts with another’s evidence is wrong and means that I am wrong. Wow. Ten years later, after hundreds of hours of therapy, and doing all the hard work of healing there I was doubting my truth.

What I learned when I crawled out of that hole is that some triggers are still powerful and can have many tentacles that still wind throughout my life. I also learned that I could stop the dysregulation from causing me to do and say things I would regret. I sought help, shared in safe spaces, and did what was necessary even though it was based on something I knew wasn’t true. Most importantly, I had compassion on myself and walked very carefully until I could feel my feet again.

My question in the title of this piece is this: What Dysregulates You? It is an important question to answer because, at some point, that thing will likely T-Bone you in an intersection. Maybe it has already and it caused you to doubt your healing.

Do not doubt your healing when this happens!

Healing will enable you to self-compassionately name the trigger, regulate your nervous system, analyze the situation for things you may have missed—while still believing your truth—and quickly view the event as a speed bump, not a mountain.